


At least the candles don't sing

by Strawberrybats



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: Anyways, Beauty and the Beast AU, F/F, hi im going to stop including all of nico's siblings in these when im dead, hope u enjoy anyways, i love them i love them i love th, im super extra what's new
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 08:37:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9115291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strawberrybats/pseuds/Strawberrybats
Summary: Nico, selflessly taking her sister's place as prisoner of a terrifying beast, gets more than she bargained for.((Beauty and the beast au! really like. does this need a summary tbh ))





	

**Author's Note:**

> Blame my friend for making me watch beauty and the beast again . as usual i abuse line breaks, include siblings and can only be serious for like ten seconds before i make another joke lmao
> 
> i haven't had as much of a feel for Nicomaki, lately, and I wanted to make sure I didn't forget how to write them. tell me if i did a crappy job ok?

“Do you  _really_  mean that?”

Nico wasn’t sure she could name a time in her life she’d been this afraid. Hell, she could probably count her top five scares as all being from the past  _hour_ , out of her league in the middle of nowhere and afraid for her life and then her sister’s, but - this was too important. 

She swallowed her fear and tried her best to stand up straight and answer the questioning shadow. “Yes. Let my sister go, and I will stay in her place.” 

Cocoa let out a sob as she was released, all whimpering and apologies and snot, but Nico held her closely and gave her a last, wary hug, eyes still trained on the gleaming purple just out of sight. 

Though she’d been living there for nearly three days, Nico had never actually managed a glimpse of her captor. She’d tried, unsubtle attempts at misdirection and a few failed attempts to a better nature that didn’t seem to exist, but the best she ever got was the clatter of nails on stone tiles and reflective amethyst eyes. 

* * *

 

Lounging about in bed, she heard the knock on her door that meant she was supposed to turn around. She didn’t have the courage to disobey, so she did as instructed and felt, rather than saw, the presence behind her. “So,” She sniffed, still annoyed with the indignity of it all. “Do you have a name, or do you expect me to stay blind  _and_  deaf to you during my stay here?”

“Your ‘stay here’ is forever, and I couldn’t care less what you want to call me.” Came the nonchalant response (from an unsettlingly close distance). 

Nico shivered, and went quiet. After almost a full minute, when she was just regaining the courage to speak, something settled softly on her shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her seat. She stayed frozen with her shoulders raised instead. “...Even so, I don’t....” They cleared their throat, sounding more like a growl than a cough. “I’ve decided to have dinner every evening with you. You didn’t commit the crime, so keeping you in a prisoner’s condition speaks poorly of me. You can ask whatever you want then -” The grip on her shoulder tightened just a fraction, and Nico had to stay even more still. “-but please, tread carefully.”

She had no doubt that the warning had something to do with the reclusive tendencies the...thing, had exhibited, so Nico just nodded quickly. The hand was quickly pulled away, and soon the door shut again. “Food will be served at eight, on the hour. You’ll find the dining room by taking left turns.”

Nico couldn’t properly decide on whether she was scared or excited, so she spent the evening until dinner feeling a mixture of the two and asking the mirror in her room to show her how her family fared. 

By dinnertime, Nico had spent the better remainder of the past hour battling the uncertainty that tickled the depths of her stomach. She wasn’t in danger – this was just dinner. She was only going because her captor had said themselves they wished to treat her more kindly.

It would be okay.

Nico inhaled, taking the time to adjust her attire – she wasn’t sure why it mattered, really, but she could assume that her captor had hardly seen her face to face either, and it seemed important, crucial, even, to appear put-together. If she didn’t appear confident, then how could she command respect?

She couldn’t remain fearful for the rest of her life (or however long she really ended up staying).

So just before the clock chimed eight, Nico walked to the dining room. There was a table set out, with nothing on it but one plate and set of utensils. It confused her, initially, because, if she remembered correctly, she was told she was having dinner _with_ the person holding her here…..Maybe the table wasn’t done being set up?

“You may sit.” The voice startled her out of her thoughts, tone striking her as familiar – _that person’s –_ and having the added effect of scaring the crap out of her. Despite herself, she flinched and hurried into her seat.

So much for confidence, she thought sullenly. Nico straightened up anyways, forcing herself to put on a neutral expression and wait for the ever-elusive owner of the house to appear. They took unbearably long, though, and eventually she just couldn’t stop herself. Nico turned her head a fraction to get the full, baffling picture.

If it weren’t for the eyes, which Nico had seen before, she wouldn’t have believed that this was her captor, and certainly wouldn’t have believed it to be capable of _speech_. Though they wore courtly attire, no amount of clothing could properly conceal the face, or hands – both covered in fur and warped into inhuman shapes, those of a large cat rather than a man. It was impossibly rude, but Nico couldn’t stop herself, looking it over and over, without saying a word, until eventually, they got fed up.

“Staring is rude. Do you mean to ask something?” The words were harsh, nearly growled out, their lip curled up and exposing teeth (as well as telegraphing their distaste).

Nico shook her head and went to staring at her plate. “Just wondering why someone as big as you didn’t have a plate set out.” She said, and it wasn’t a lie, really. “Isn’t it normal for the lord of the house to eat first?”

Nico risked a glimpse up, noting that the beast – she’d call it that for now – seemed surprised. They didn’t _quite_ have eyebrows, exactly, what with the fur and all, but there were some darker patches and a sort of ridge where they would have been, which was just as effective. The eyes went wider. A rounded ear flicked.

Curious.

They shook it off and sat down across from Nico, ‘hands’ folded into their arms. “Lady. And I don’t eat in front of guests.”

_That_ got a surprise out of Nico. A lady. Huh. But, acting surprised would be stupid, and somehow Nico got the feeling she wouldn’t like to be on the receiving end of a tantrum when her hostess just so happened to have inch-long claws that did not escape her notice.

So she gave a shaky half smile. “Hope that’s not some sort of roundabout way of telling me you eat them,” she quipped.

“I hope that’s not some sort of roundabout way of asking me to murder you,” the beast intoned, mocking Nico’s statement.

Nico took the hint and backed away from the murder jokes. A few dishes came in on a trolley and hoisted themselves onto the table; it was enough for far more than two people to eat, and Nico was almost offended at the implication that it was all for her. Wasn’t that a waste?!

And, on a second note, it spoke volumes about the strangeness of the place that Nico didn’t even flinch when inanimate objects moved themselves. As long as the food didn’t squirm, then whatever, just a little bit more magic bullshit in the castle of Terrifying Dungeons with a complementary Big Murder Cat.

“I won’t be able to eat all of this, you know.” Nico said flatly. “What are you going to do with all the extra?”

Her host shrugged. “Dump it, probably. Or stash it away in a drawer. The larder refills itself, so…..no sense being stingy, I guess.”

It still rubbed her the wrong way to waste food, but Nico felt better. She slid open one of the containers and tried to make herself a balanced-ish meal. Not that it was easy, when half the dishes were spaghetti, for some reason. Nico eventually filled her plate and tried to make conversation. “So…..Do you eat the same stuff as me?”

“Pardon?”

She gestured to the dishes. “I mean, does the house make stuff like this for you or is raw meat coming out of a cabinet in the middle of the kitchen?”

Her nose wrinkled up in distaste, and it looked sort of like a snarl. Her tone was less aggressive, though, which betrayed her actual intent. “I wouldn’t eat something that disgusting.”

“Oh, that’s a relief.” Nico didn’t want to push it much further; she’d gotten what she wanted out of the question.

This whatever-it-was, this beast – She probably used to be something else.

They didn’t talk a lot after that.

* * *

It took two or three more nights for Nico to finally wheedle a name out of her. “Maki,” she said at the doorway, before Nico could get back to her room. “My name.”

Nico guessed it was some attempt to make it easier to talk to her, and of course, stupidly replied that she hadn’t asked. It actually seemed to work out better than if she hadn’t, in any case. After another couple of nights Nico came to realize that making a functional relationship with Maki was very much a game of tug of war.

Maki was generally too indifferent to speak first, hence, that often fell to Nico. Try too hard, though, and Maki would grow annoyed with her badgering, so Nico had to start it and force Maki to continue it for her. She had to be receptive, but if Maki detected pity, she shut down. It was the same way with fear.

Actually, she really responded best to anger, though the implications of that made Nico cringe.

So, Nico teased and prodded and treated Maki like a child; affectionately but with an air of complete security and confidence in her ability to hold her own.

The next time they talked, Nico was visiting the garden.

It’d gotten stale in her room a while after she’d read the books inside and asked the shitty mirror every possible thing she could think to ask it, so the garden seemed like the logical way to mix it up a little.

She hadn’t expected Maki to be out there, though in retrospect she probably should have, considering it was her house and Nico had yet to run into her any other place. “Checking out the view?” Nico strolled up to her side, pretending she wasn’t two heads shorter and trying to emulate the “brood-and-stare-off-the-balcony” look.

“Or just making sure you don’t run away.” Maki looked down at her, crossing her arms. There were little punctures in the material of her shirt where her hands rested, something Nico hadn’t noticed before.

“Me? Run?” Nico tried to sound shocked, and rolled her eyes. “Pssssshh. Too cold for that, today. Besides, you’d probably track me down – it’s not worth it.”

“I’m not an experienced hunter or anything. How can you be so sure?” She asked.

Nico raised an eyebrow. “Well, I didn’t think you’d actually try to _tempt_ me, geez. What kind of idiot tells their prisoner they have good chances of escape?”

“You’re not a prisoner, you’re a ward. There’s a difference.” Maki said stiffly. She held her arms a little tighter and the pinprick holes in her shirt were filled.

“Right.” Nico replied, flatly. “In any case, I’m not going to go back on what I said. I’m here for Cocoa - and like I said, I don’t like my odds of getting away. Even if you aren’t some sort of master hunter, you’d probably still be able to smell me.”

Maki blinked. “Smell you?”

“Well, yeah, duh. You’re, what, _some_ kind of cat…person…thing. Forgive me for not having a species come to mind but _this_ ,” Nico prepared herself for the very real possibility of losing a finger over what she’d decided to do, but didn’t want to drop her momentum and shy away – and tapped her on the tip of her nose, earning a quick flinch and a lot of blinking – “doesn’t look like it’s just for show.”

She grumbled and wiped at her face, like Nico left an itch there. She probably did. “No species,” She grunted. “One of a fucking kind.”

Nico laughed. “Someone thinks she’s quite the special snowflake, huh? What’s to say there aren’t more?”

This, naturally, spurred an argument, in which Nico attempted to vouch for theoretical cat-people, in other locations, and Maki attempted to explain to her that, even if it were the case, Nico had no proof. After which Nico had grabbed her arm and said, ‘Wow, proof!’ at which point Maki skulked out of the garden to mope about whatever it was she moped about.

Now that she was alone in the garden, Nico sat down on a bench beside the lavender plants and angel’s trumpets, staring at the forest outside the fence. It was quiet out here.

She wondered what’d happened to Maki.

* * *

It took a week or two longer for Nico to get around to the point, because they were finally getting pleasant with each other and she figured it’d be a damn shame to pick the wrong time and ruin it all – but no matter how much the tension lessened, or how cordial they’d gotten with each other, Nico knew things had to come to a head eventually. Because it didn’t _matter_ how friendly they’d gotten. Captivity was exactly that, and, at some point, Nico had to test the bars. Maki knew it too.

So, over dinner, Nico finally worked up the nerve to ask what Maki had been all but begging her not to ask for as long as she’d stayed.

Nico picked at her food that night, and it didn’t escape notice. Maki was dense; not dense enough to miss out on all the signals Nico was giving out. She seemed anxious, kneading at the table cloth before it occurred to her what she was doing and then making an attempt to stop only to find herself unconsciously doing it again, moments later.

Eventually, Nico put her fork down. They both stared at each other for a while, as if the dinner table was a particularly engaging chess board and that’s why they were so silent.

“…It’s been two weeks.” She ventured.

“Yes.” Maki replied shortly.

This tension was killing her. Nico drew a deep breath and then sighed twice as deeply, as if she could have sucked it up and expelled it. “Listen. Is it okay for me to ask you?”

Maki looked to be having trouble breathing for a moment, though it was hard to tell apart from her eyes, which she quickly closed. Another instant, and she relaxed, in much the same way Nico had. “Yes.”

“What happened to you?”

Even though she’d clearly been prepared, it took Maki a long time to answer the question. She did, though, and Nico noted she had gotten more control when her eyes opened – the pupils were rounder, less feline, and she didn’t look angry anymore.

She sighed and leaned back in the chair, beckoning Nico to her side with an almost lazy twirl of her finger. Nico rolled her eyes and pulled a chair up. It did seem more like the type of thing to be discussed at close range, but still, talk about melodramatic.

“You already guessed, but, I guess it’s worth saying I used to be normal.” She paused and thought about it, then added a correction: “Sort of, anyways. As far as nobility goes. I lived here with my family and didn’t work a day in my life. I spent days on end in the library ignoring my social duties, and I guess eventually some relative or other must have gotten fed up, because I was betrothed to a man – some low-house nobility, I’d never met him. Even though I was an only child, my parents must have figured marrying someone with a lower status would make his standards lower, and I could skirt by doing what I always did.”

Nico leaned in on the table at this point, sensing what was coming. Obviously, ‘what she always did’ didn’t work out. The part she was missing was how the hell it’d backfired so badly that she got turned into a beast.

Maki’s expression dropped to more of a grimace, in contrast with the nervous but prepared look she had previously, but she continued. “You probably know how it is, though. Once we were engaged, my inheritance and status were given to him, and he got…full of himself. He’d correct me on this and that, and lock the library until I’d hung around him long enough for him to be satisfied. I got mad. Really, really mad. After a fight or two, he took to ignoring me and whittling away the family fortune on balls and parties.”

“You were only engaged, right? Couldn’t your parents still break it off?” Nico asked, feeling morally obligated to point it out.

She shrugged. “They liked the guy. If I complained, they probably would have just assumed I was mad that I couldn’t be as antisocial. Try to swing it like a good thing.”

Nico grumbled. “Okay, well how did a bad marriage turn you into a cat?”

“I’m getting there, _god_ ,” Maki huffed, crossing her arms. “I don’t _have_ to be telling you any of this.”

“But you do feel like you do.” Nico pointed out, earning a prolonged eyeroll and an even bigger huff for her troubles.

“Whatever,” She said flippantly. “ _Like I was saying_ , I wasn’t really thrilled with the idea of married life. Someone….approached me, with an idea. Put it in my head that maybe I could bribe him, or blackmail him into leaving me alone, or at least being less of an ass about everything. So I came to him one night with a case that person had given me, full of jewels and money and who knows what else. Didn’t ask where it came from.”

“That’s not suspicious or creepy at all,” Nico intoned, though she did regret it when Maki looked actually agitated about the slight this time.

She glared at her. “Shut up, I was fifteen! What the hell did I know?”

Nico held her hands up placatingly. “Sorry, sorry. I thought people usually got married a lot older. I forgot that’s not as big with the nobility. Lots of arranged stuff.

“..It’s fine. I _was_ stupid not to see it, and I’d certainly read enough novels to know it was a bad move.” She admitted. “Anyways, I gave him the case and he was really surprised. He thought I’d done him some huge favor, so, he leaned in to kiss me. I was pissed, and…that’s really all I remember about it. I blacked out and woke up like this.”

“Are you kidding me?!?!” How fucking anticlimactic could it get? Nico was almost offended that Maki’s tragic life story had such a flop ending. Actually, scratch the almost. She waited a month of her life living in a mansion with her, only to find out she didn’t get any answers?

Maki flinched away from her with a guilty look. “….Okay, so I might know a little more. But it’s all very….”

Nico was a second away from throttling her. “Come on, tell me! You said you’d do it and now it’s just gonna drive me crazy until I know!”

“Don’t say I didn’t try to spare you the details.” She warned.

“It’s nice,” Nico replied, arms crossed. “But I still wanna know.”

“I tore his throat out.” Oh. Yikes. Maki seemed to get that much from Nico’s expression, because she tried to backpedal. “I didn’t know until later, but the guy who gave me the case was some sort of sorcerer, whatever you want to call them. He wanted me to kill the guy, so at some point, it just…happened. He showed up, congratulated me, and then….I don’t know, used magic, I guess. Then,” she gestured to herself, still avoiding eye contact, “Um, this happened. I think. I don’t know which thing happened first.”

“You think your fiancée wouldn’t have noticed you turning into a monster before you killed him?” Nico asked, head cocked. She grimaced at how harsh it sounded that way, but it was what happened.

 Maki was quiet. “I think he must have had the enchantment on me long before I killed my fiancée. I couldn’t have done what I did without some sort of advantage; he was a lot stronger than I was.” She squirmed in the chair. “I still can’t see myself murdering him without some sort of compulsion being put on me.”

“And that’s the end of it? They just left you here?”

“Who wouldn’t? It took me a couple months to get situated. Now I just…..wait.” Maki seemed resigned. “He said I’d go back to normal once I manage to love someone as much as I hated my fiancée. But, obviously, that’s a bust – I don’t think I even have it in me to feel that strongly a second time in my life. I loathed him. Every inch of my soul went into it.”

Nico took a moment to mull it over, chewing on her previously-neglected dinner. “Well.” She said, at length. “That fucking sucks.”

Maki actually laughed. “Yeah.”

* * *

Once they broke the ice, it got even easier to predict Maki. To a degree, she’d stopped being such a royal pain in the ass about everything, some sort of mutual understanding (it almost seemed like gratitude. But Nico was just thinking egocentrically again, wasn’t she? She’d always been told she acted too much like everything had to do with herself) making it easier to talk.

Sometimes Nico ran into her in the library, or outdoors, and it was less of a surprise.

She checked the mirror every night, though, and muttered goodnights to her family as if they could hear her.

* * *

“What was my family like? What kind of question is that?”

Maki put her food down, and Nico decided to forgo all manners and try to respond while her own mouth was still full. “I mean, yeah,” She starts, around a mouthful of scrambled eggs, “You were rich and they married you off too young, but were they good parents? Did your mother take care of you? Father?”

“I don’t see what kind of breakfast conversation this is,” Maki whined, apparently seeing the question to be in bad taste. “Don’t people usually talk about the weather? Or the quality of the food?”

“We’re in the middle of winter and the food is prepared magically at mediocre quality. There’s nothing to discuss there.” Nico said flatly, making a gesture with her fork like she was stabbing at Maki. “So spill it! What were they like?”

She rolled her eyes, annoyed. “Well _obviously_ they left, if that says anything.”

“But do you love them?” Nico prodded.

Maki narrowed her eyes. “What are you getting at here, anyway?”

“Just trying to exploit…I don’t know, _something_. If you aren’t going to make any new attachments, then maybe if you _remember_ you love your parents a lot-“She started. Nico was quickly cut off.

“You thought it could break the spell.” Maki concluded. Nico nodded, and the girl-turned-beast leaned back in the chair thoughtfully. “It’s…new, but no, that won’t work. I cared about them, but considering the circumstance….nothing. Not more than I hate my ex.”

Nico shrugged. “Gotta give me points for trying, right? I was kind of hoping that if I could snap you out of this whole turned-into-a-cat funk you’d maybe forgive my sister for stealing from you?” It sounded like a question, but Nico realized when she said it that that’s how she’d been thinking the entire time since she heard Maki’s explanation.

Break the spell, leave the castle. Simple as can be. What if that wasn’t it?

Maki still looked thoughtful. And maybe a little guilty? It was hard to tell. She was expressive, but not quite as much as a human would be. “Well, uh…what’s she like?”

Nico blinked. “Huh?”

“Well it’s not like families are off limits or anything!” She said defensively, arms crossed tightly. She pointedly refused eye contact. “You just asked about mine, so I’m asking about yours, is all….”

“I mean, sure, but I don’t really see the relevancy….” Might as well humor her. Nico didn’t have much else to do. “Cocoa was the one you saw, but I have another younger sister and a younger brother. She’s the most energetic out of the three of them, and I chased her down here trying to keep her out of trouble. I failed, obviously, but for what it’s worth, she usually doesn’t steal things. And roses are generally, y’know. Not the worst thing you could steal.”

Maki neglected to respond to the last part and focused on the beginning. “You have more siblings?”

“Three total, sure. They’re all younger than me, but Cocoro is the oldest and Cotarou is the youngest.” She frowned at that. Speaking of Cotarou…….it was hard to keep track of dates, as things were, but his birthday was surely coming up when she had left…..

“Is something wrong?”

“I think I’m missing his birthday….” She muttered, shoulders slumping of their own accord. Not that she should have expected to be there in time when she agreed to this, but still. That was a bit of a killjoy.

“Oh.” Maki, seeming uncomfortable, shifted in the chair. It was looking like Nico was going to be quiet for the rest of breakfast, when Maki cleared her throat. “I…you probably want to leave, right..?”

She looked up, not quite believing it.

Maki turned her head away. “There are stables,” She said. “You can pick any horse you want and be home, uh, whenever. I shouldn’t have kept you so long, anyways….”

“You’re really just gonna _let_ me go?” Nico asked, disbelief clear. “After the whole prisoner thing with my sister and all the skulking around?”

“The rose is,” Maki seemed to search for the right word, drumming her claws across the table until she found it and continued, head still low, “Invaluable, to me, but you’re right. I don’t think your sister could have known it was magic. And I really only wanted to keep you around because I finished all my books last year…..and I was bored……it’s not right to keep someone from their family. Even if I think I’m being nice about it, it’s……” She sighed, loudly. “Just take a horse. Sorry for being obnoxious about everything.”

Maki excused herself from the table in a hurry, leaving the furniture to clean itself off while Nico tried to work her way through what had been said.

“….I’m a _book replacement_?!” How insulting. Nico would consider herself, at minimum, the entertainment equivalent of several lengthy plays and musicals. Saying she only settled for Nico because she was out of books was just plain insulting.

Still, even though Nico looked around for Maki to try and get a confirmation – it was really okay to just _leave_ after two months? – she was nowhere to be found. Nico departed, alone, in the chill of the evening.

* * *

“What are we doing, Nico?” An innocent enough question, considering it’d been ten minutes and Nico still hadn’t explained to any of her siblings why she was setting them up on top of their horse, Shun.

Nico lifted Cotarou, the last to go up onto its back, and grunted a response. “That horse I rode in on the other day isn’t mine. I’m taking us to bring it back and say hi.”

Cocoa squirmed in the saddle. “But you said you stole it from that creepy house! I don’t wanna go back there! It’s gonna growl at me again!”

“You’ll be _fine_ , I’m making her apologize too.” She said placatingly, putting a hand on her leg, because her shoulder was too high while she was sitting on Shun.

“That creepy thing is a _girl_?!”

Nico climbed the horse she took, leading it in front of her siblings and . “Yeah.” She said, offhandedly. “If you don’t want to go, you can just tell me, Cocoa. I’m not going to make you.”

Cocoro patted her sister’s back. “Yeah! We won’t think you’re a scaredy-cat! I promise!”

That was obviously intended to be supportive, but Nico had to laugh inwardly at the way Cocoa bristled at the idea. Now she was _definitely_ coming along. “I’m not scared at all! Why should I be scared?! It’s just a big house with a few dead trees. So what?! That’s nothing to a brave adventurer like me!”

“Okay, then, Cocoa. Can we leave now?” Nico asked curiously, lifting the reins. Cocoro would be leading their own horse behind her.

“Well, uh….Cotarou is too young!” Cocoa tried. “He’s gonna be really, really scared! I should stay behind with him so he isn’t.”

Nico leaned over and craned her neck to get a good look at him; he was seven, as of two days ago. “Cotarou, do you like cats?”

“Yes!” Came the spirited reply.

“He’ll be fine.” Nico said flatly. “Any more questions?”

Cocoa sighed and slumped over in the saddle, propped up by her brother. “Ughhhhh. Okay, I’ll go to the creepy house again.”

* * *

It took about two hours, and when they got to the manor, Nico led the horse she’d borrowed back to the stable and looked around, wondering if Maki was in the garden. When that didn’t seem to be the case, she shrugged it off and headed for the front door, where her siblings stared at the foreboding entryway with varying degrees of uncertainty.

No point in being subtle about it.

Nico pounded on the door with the large iron knocker on the right side. “Hey! I brought your horse back!”

There was a long pause, until the door opened a crack. Maki peeked out for long enough to catch Cocoa behind Cocoro, and a wide-eyed Cotarou playing with the other knocker before she shut the door. “Go away.”

Nico pounded on the door again. “Hey! You didn’t say bye to me, you know!”

“I didn’t feel like it. Go away.”

“Open the door!!!”

There was another period of nothing, but then, rapidly, the door opened and Maki pulled Nico inside and slammed it shut just as quickly. “Not exactly what I meant…” She grumbled, dusting off her jacket.

Maki was even less pleased, although she was more frantic than anything else. “Why did you bring them? Why did you come _back_?!”

Nico crossed her arms. “You apologized to _me_ , I want you to apologize to Cocoa. And she’ll apologize to you too, of course.” She tossed her hair to one side, flippant. “Besides, didn’t you say you were bored?”

“They’re children!” Maki was insistent, still agitated, and paced back and forth in front of the door. “I’m going to scare the shit out of them!”

“You won’t if you aren’t trying to,” Nico reasoned. “They’re big enough kids.”

“I _gave_ you the horse. Take it back. Take your siblings back.”

They were going nowhere fast with this argument. Nico uncrossed her arms and sighed, deeply, deciding the only way around it was to be straightforward about it. “I want to know why you’re acting so weird about everything.”

“..I don’t know what to do. Nobody ever comes back. I don’t want to ruin it.”

She rolled her eyes. “If you’re that worried, you’ll do fine. Stop being a baby about it and say hi to my siblings. I brought them in here so Cocoa would get over her fear of cats, anyways.”

“Hey! You’re using me as a therapy animal?!”

Nico ignored that and opened the door. Cocoro let out a sigh of relief. “I thought you’d been abducted again, Nico.”

“No, I’m fine. Cocoa, get out here. Maki has something to say to you~!”

“Ughh…..do I gotta?” She was obviously dragging her feet, and if the sigh was anything to go by, Maki felt the same way about the ‘apology’.

Nico nodded and Cocoa reluctantly pulled up front, standing on the porch and glowering up at Maki.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you, or whatever……” Nico elbowed her. Maki hissed a little in complaint, but dropped it when Cocoa faltered on the porch, nervous. “I should have just asked you to put my flower down. I’m sorry for yelling.”

Cocoa still seemed suspicious, but eventually, she nodded. “I’m sorry for touching your flower without asking. And coming into your house.”

“Okay.”

“ ’Kay.”

Both of them looked at Nico with questioning eyes, but didn’t budge an inch from their respective positions. It was kind of funny how childish the whole thing was. “Was that hard?” She asked, when Cocoa finally got bored and ran off to screw around with Cotarou in the building.

“Yeah.” Maki said, stubbornly. “The kid hates me.”

“But you did it because sweet Nico asked you to, didn’t you~?”

Maki grimaced again. “Not like I had a choice……”

“You were nice to her. It counts for something.”

Maki didn’t seem convinced, but changed the subject before Nico could press on it. “Nico, why did you really come back? I thought you didn’t like it here.” She asked, looking perplexed. “I can’t figure it out. You could have just told your sister I didn’t mean it.”

She shrugged. “Yeah, but that’s not satisfying for anyone. I couldn’t leave you here feeling like garbage about it forever. Don’t you feel at least a little better?”

“Maybe a little….” Maki mumbled.

“ _Now_ , onto our second matter….why didn’t you say bye to me? I thought we were friends!” Nico demanded.

“I didn’t know you thought that.” Maki replied warily. “I didn’t want to see you go, is all.”

Nico rolled her eyes. “You’re such a baby about it. Come on, come here. I was going to miss you too.” She spread her arms out, intending a hug, and Maki stared for a second, unsure, before sniffling and all but falling onto her.

A bright light enveloped them; Nico shielding her eyes with her free arm while under her left, Maki shrank, emanating a strange, not unpleasant warmth. By the time it faded, Maki was still a bit taller, but nowhere near as much. And, of course, most strikingly of all –

“You broke it.” Awestruck, Maki pulled away, looking almost as if she had stage fright all of a sudden. “I didn’t think I was –“

“Hey, I guess it turns out you were actually pretty cute under all that fur~!” Nico grinned. “Guess I was right! You like me! A lot!”

She went red. “Wh- no! Obviously, th-there was just, uh, a time limit, or, the sorcerer died, or, uh –“ Maki searched, desperately, for an excuse. “Umm……”

“It’s fine. Really.” Nico said seriously.

Maki put her face in her hands. “It’s embarrassing…”

“How about I pretend I don’t know about your massive stinking crush on me and we start over?” Nico suggested, maybe having too much fun with the situation. Before Maki even had a chance to retort, Cocoa came running back into the room to show them something, and her jaw dropped.

“Nico!! Why is the cat lady hot now?!”

“Oh my god, kill me.” All Nico had to offer was a soothing pat on the back.


End file.
